Dubbing, in filmmaking, the process of adding new dialogue or other sounds to the sound track of a motion picture that has already been shot. Dubbing is most familiar to audiences as a means of translating foreign-language films into the audience’s language. When a foreign language is dubbed, the translation of the original dialogue is carefully matched to the lip movements of the actors in the film. Dubbed sound tracks rarely equal the artistic quality of original foreign-language sound tracks, however, and hence subtitles may be preferred by viewers as a means of understanding the dialogue in foreign films.

Dubbing is often employed in the original-language version of a sound track for technical reasons. Filmmakers routinely use it to remedy defects that arise from synchronized filming (in which the actors’ voices are recorded simultaneously with the photography). Synchronously recorded dialogue may be unclear or inaudible in a long-distance shot or because of accidental air traffic overhead, or it may simply be impossible to conceal a microphone close enough to pick up the actors’ voices intelligibly. Dubbing allows the filmmaker to obtain high-quality dialogue regardless of the actual conditions that existed during shooting. Dubbing is also used to add sound effects to the original sound track. It may also be used in musicals to substitute a more pleasing voice for that of an actor who performs a song on camera.

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the means for the production and showing of motion pictures. It includes not only the motion-picture camera and projector but also such technologies as those involved in recording sound, in editing both picture and sound, in creating special effects, and in producing animation.

in history of the motion picture

...American studios quickly followed suit, making the region a factory for the round-the-clock production of movies in as many as 15 separate languages. By the end of 1931, however, the technique of dubbing had been sufficiently perfected to replace multilingual production, and Joinville was converted into a dubbing centre for all of Europe.

The technological development that most liberated the sound film, however, was the practice known variously as postsynchronization, rerecording, or dubbing, in which image and sound are printed on separate pieces of film so that they can be manipulated independently. Postsynchronization enabled filmmakers to edit images freely again. Because the overwhelming emphasis of the period from 1928 to...